1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of electronic transactions conducted in a networked computer environment. In particular, the invention relates to a method and apparatus for creating and using trusted digital receipts for electronic transactions.
2. Description for the Related Art
For some time, networked computers have been used for carrying out electronic transactions such as banking, brokerage, trading of financial instruments, and the purchase of goods. Until recently, however, these transactions were performed predominantly on reliable and relatively secure privately controlled networks. For example, a large bank would use a private computer network to connect its fault-tolerant host computer servers to similar computer systems of other large institutions. In general these networks, and the electronic transaction taking place over them, were relatively secure and fault tolerant. Additionally, the parties involved in such transactions were technically sophisticated and ordinarily invested relatively large amounts of time and money in such systems and networks.
Recently, however, it has become possible to use public networks such as the Internet to carry out a wide range of transactional applications implementing banking, brokerage, electronic purchases of hard goods, claim submissions, and other similar functions. For example, it is now possible to purchase goods and services over the Internet and specifically the World Wide Web. Typically a customer locates the merchant's web page, may view product information in the form of advertisements or product descriptions, and proceeds to order goods and services using HTML pages and their Web browser. The customer may opt to pay using conventional financial instruments such as credit cards or debit cards. Merchants or institutions may send an acknowledgement, or even a confirmation number back to the customer in an attempt to assure the customer that the transaction has completed.
The current process of conducting electronic transactions over public networks suffers in a number of ways. Because public networks such as the Internet are inherently less reliable than private networks, failures in such transactions are more common. Further, the technical sophistication of the parties to the transaction is, in general, much lower. For example, merchants and customers transacting over the Internet are much less likely to incur the expense of complex fault-tolerant hardware and software. As a result, it is more common for such users to suffer single-point failures and they are often less capable of recovering from errors originating in their own system or the public network. Thus, due to the relative lack of security in public networks and the decreased likelihood of the use of complex fault-tolerant computer systems for transactions over such networks, failures leading to disputes between the parties are more likely to occur.
The merchant or supplier ordinarily generates and retains some record of the transaction not only so the order can be fulfilled (sending the product or information to the customer, and initiating the billing procedure), but also to aid the merchant in resolving disputes with customers on fulfillment issues, billing issues, or other customer issues with the merchant.
Resolving disputes between merchants and customers is difficult using current network transaction implementations, however, since the customer is at most provided with only a thank-you message or similar acknowledgement. The merchant will ordinarily create and retain his own record of the transaction, which may not be trusted by the customer. Of course the customer could also create and retain their own records, but the merchant may not trust the customer's records since, being in digital form, they are easily modified or forged. Thus, disputes arising from electronic transactions over the Internet are typically difficult to resolve since neither the merchant nor the customer trusts the accuracy of the other's private records.
Further, due to the use of non-fault-tolerant computer systems, problems of merchant data loss are more likely to arise. Additionally, when transacting over public networks such as the Internet, recovery from such problems can be more difficult. For example, if the merchant's computer system fails, transaction records may be lost. In that case the customer's own records may be the only surviving record of the transaction. When the merchant loses transaction data, the merchant may be forced to trust persons who claim to be customers who ordered goods or services.